Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the current average time is between food hygiene visits undertaken for hot food takeaway venues in England.

Local authorities must ensure they perform official controls on all food businesses regularly, on a risk basis and with appropriate frequency. The Food Law Code of Practice provides these food hygiene intervention frequencies with a higher risk and/or non-compliant will receive an intervention more frequently than those compliant or lower risk.

Data pertaining to the average time between food hygiene visits undertaken for hot food takeaway venues in England is not held by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) as we do not categorise food establishment in that way. This data could be gathered individually from local authorities.

Data reported to the FSA on the number of authorised food hygiene officers in England by local authorities via their returns data is as follows:

- 1,178 authorised officers were in post at the end of 2021/22;

- 1,605 authorised officers were in post at the end of 2022/23;

- 1,797 authorised officers were in post at the end of 2023/24; and

- 1,828 authorised officers were in post at the end of 2024/25.

This information does not include regulatory support officers or trainees working towards suitable qualifications. Prior to 2021/22 only questions relating to full time equivalent posts were requested from local authorities in relation to their resources.